


God Complex

by celluloid



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Character Death, Gen, Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-11 18:09:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/801612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloid/pseuds/celluloid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy is a damn good doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God Complex

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written in March 2010. Any medical errors are my own; I never took biology past tenth grade, I just did a lot of googling.

If one were to ask James T. Kirk to sum up Dr. McCoy in a single word, James T. Kirk would give one a blank look. He’d cock his head to the side, mull it over for a moment or two in a style that was just for show, and then give his response.

“You really don’t know anything, do you?”

Because to James T. Kirk, there’s too much of Dr. McCoy to be said that can be summed up in any way. Jim can be long-winded, but if the subject is going to turn to one of his most favourite people in the entire universe, then he’ll make the asker regret it. That’s why nobody asks him anymore.

Dr. McCoy is a dick. He never lets poor Jim have any fun, he never lets him out to play. He constrains him to beds all the time and it’s rude. Jim’s a big boy, he’s grown up, and it does not matter that Dr. McCoy is six years older than he because he is still legally an adult and technically his commander no matter how much the doctor may try to act otherwise so Leonard can just _fucking shut it_.

At this point he may diverge on a tantrum, depending on the most recent circumstances, but really, he loves the guy like nothing else. He’s his best friend, his first friend, his lasting friend. He’s his confidant, his trust, his security. He has no idea where he’d be without him, doesn’t like to think about the subject because that would be a world without Bones and bones are a vital part of the skeletal structure. Seriously. And one needs a skeletal structure. Well, maybe some life forms out there don’t but Jim definitely does so he needs his bones and his Bones and Bones keeps his bones intact so he can live on to bone other life forms. Jim likes the word, the name, it reminds him of stability. Action and adventure are fantastic and all, but only when there’s a sure chance of stability in the background, something to return to when he’s tired or some painful memory comes up or whatever.

Bones doesn’t reciprocate; well, he does, but not at first glance and if Jim were anyone else Jim would probably hate him (and he already hates him at least half of the time; the man has no concept of civil bedside manner). They stumbled into each other at confusing times of their lives after being recently totally isolated and built off one another and now here they are.

Jim runs off, insists on looking out there for the greater good, for the thrill of it, to experience new things and help every single injustice he comes across. Bones sits up top, biding his time until Jim’s attempt to save a space kitten from a space tree has rendered him bruised and bleeding, and then Bones will just roll his eyes and give him another stab for good measure.

Jim never really learns his lesson though and Bones has long given up on trying to teach him (that took about three days) because it doesn’t matter, they’re good at what they do and they communicate perfectly and their actions are always so in-sync with one another, external consequences be damned, so fuck it, everything’s running smoothly and if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it.

And if it is broke, then Bones can fix it.

The two share this morbid fascination over ancient practices and objects. They’re living it large up in space, wandering about wherever, crew full of young rapscallions and a cool old guy or two and fucking Spock whom McCoy is convinced is going to become a chocoholic one of these days, but at the same time, most of them hail from earth and quite a few of them from the United States in particular and it’s been through good times and bad times and really really bad times and it’s the latter that can be so fascinating, and hey they made it through it, and that’s what history is there for, to look back on and learn so progression can be made.

Jim likes the evidence of past life, seeing how others much like him would pass their time without all the fancy shit he’s got today. He keeps an eye on that time, old analogue systems ever-present, overly-elaborate and entirely unnecessary designs decorating the outlines, but it doesn’t matter how useless they are because he likes them. They’re pretty (and sometimes they aren’t) and they’re telling and the texture is cool and it’s something to look over and at and study, amongst, well, everything else. Plus the contrast is cool. Jim doesn’t think of himself as much of an art nerd or anything like that but he thinks the sharp contrast between old and new is beautiful.

Bones’ obsession with the past is more masochistic than anything else. Of course he’s studied the ways of old medicinal techniques because it’s required and the methods do still work and it’s important to know how the body works and blah blah blah, they’re better off without it, he’s better off without it. He knows what he’s doing in either case, though, but good lord the idea that people used to have to put themselves through being cut up and the slow progression of it all and it disturbs him. Bones firmly believes that if he’s helping someone, he isn’t helping them in a way that one wrong slip could lead to their death.

Jim knows this and fully entrusts his life to Bones because, duh. And on many a drunken occasion he’ll grab Bones, loop one arm behind the back of his neck and pull it back towards him, bringing Bones’ head closer to his. There will be a drink in his other hand and depending on where he is or what he’s doing, most of it will end up on the floor instead of inside his body. And that’s fine by Bones, except.

“You’re going to slip on that if you don’t calm down.”

“You’re drunk! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“ _You’re_ drunk, _you_ don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re an _idiot_.”

And then Kirk will loosen his grip. “Okay, we’re both drunk. Wha’e’er. I’m not gonna slip.”

“You will and you’ll fall and your head’s gonna crack open and I’m not gonna put it back together,” Bones will point out.

“You’re too melodramatic and stuffy. You used to be fun.” Take a swig, fake a throw of the liquid into Bones’ face as Jim’ll further loosen the grip on his neck. Bones will open his mouth expectantly because Jim’s lost it before. Jim will laugh at him for looking like an idiot because he didn’t lose it this time, then he’ll forget about it and toss the glass that’s still a quarter full of a probably-illegal substance over his shoulder. Bones will snap his mouth shut and glare. Jim will giggle.

Jim has the manliest giggle there is, damn it.

“Naw,” Jim will say, “you’d fix me right up. You’d be bored if I weren’t here.”

“I’d be happy.”

“Goddamn, you’d be even crabbier than you are now. I don’t think the universe could handle it. Hell, fuck the universe, I don’t think _Spock_ would be able to handle it.”

This will trigger Bones’ drunken instinct to imitate his self-proclaimed arch-nemesis-that-isn’t-Jim and in some misguided attempt at making his eyebrows stick up he’ll cross his eyes and Jim will see his facial expression, pause for a minute, and then double over in laughter, making Bones stop instantly because it’s not like he’s doing anything wrong, why’s he gotta be laughed at?

And then Jim will slip on the spilled liquid and land flat on his ass and Bones will crack a smile because, really, he was asking for it.

And then he’ll ease himself down to make sure that Jim is okay, because if Jim really does crack his head open, then who is he kidding? He’ll fix it.

That’s his job. That’s how he makes his living and it’s always how he’s made his living, from working at a clinic as a teenager to doing rounds in med school to having a small practice to being forced into what’s essentially a military organization and he still doesn’t want to hurt anybody, so doctoring it remains. On the immediate scale of things there’s a difference between helping a small town stay well and healing those who leap headfirst into danger based on the idea of it being good for the universe, or whatever excuse it is that’s necessary, but on the grander scale there really isn’t. Patients become friends and he’s still helping people.

He has a staff under him who know what they’re doing and are always in top shape, because this is supposed to be the flagship and it would simply be embarrassing if they weren’t always ready. They aren’t really supposed to be fighting all the time, but it happens, and McCoy and his team are ready at every turn.

“Dr. McCoy is a good doctor,” Captain Kirk will say, and behind closed doors add, “a goddamn great, perfect, couldn’t fucking ask for better motherfucker of a doctor you son of a bitch,” then punch Bones in the arm to punctuate the statement. “That’s for stabbing me there so many times,” Jim will add, and then run off before Bones’ll get the chance to retaliate that it’s Jim’s own damn fault all the time anyways.

Still, though, he takes the compliment and runs with it, pride showing, because even though it doesn’t really take all that much for Jim to compliment anyone aboard the _Enterprise_ , and certainly not that much for anyone close to him, it’s still the truth.

McCoy takes pride in his team’s constant readiness and their near-perfect track record. They simply don’t fuck up. _He_ doesn’t fuck up. There have been casualties, absolutely; it would be absurd to think that there never were. But those are never the fault of the medical staff. They’re either too late to get to the patient, and it’s never a fault of their own, it’s always surrounding circumstances that they have no control over; or the patient is dead on impact; or there’s absolutely nothing that can be done, and even then, they work until the very last breath, and sometimes that’s actually brought someone back.

But if the smallest thing in someone is off? Someone on the medical team is sure to notice it, and if it isn’t McCoy himself, then someone will bring it to his attention. Diagnose and cure before the body deteriorates any further, before an infection breaks out on the ship. Find a hidden injury and get the crewmember healed before they fuck it up further by trying to hide it (in many ways, the captain isn’t a very good role model). Ensure the ship is full of happy, healthy, not-in-pain and, most importantly, alive, people. McCoy does it all.

And his response? “Captain Kirk is a damn good captain,” nothing to add behind closed doors. Kirk will pout and whine and demand more recognition than that; Bones will roll his eyes and inform him that he’s being juvenile. 

“I’m not juvenile,” Kirk will snap, just barely avoiding stamping his feet in a sure sign of childishness.

“Whatever,” McCoy will reply, voice flat and dull, rolling his eyes. “Do you not want me to say you’re a good captain? You’re still a good captain.”

And at this Jim will raise up a finger, swoop it at a sharp right angle, and mock-jab it into Bones’ chest. “Ah,” he’ll say, “now you’re just being a liar. You’re contradicting yourself.”

“I am not.”

“Yes you are!” Jim will cry, and this time, yes, he’ll even stamp his foot. “You can’t say that I’m a good captain and I’m juvenile at the same time! A good captain wouldn’t be juvenile! You’re a liar! You’re making up horrible things about me, or you’re just lying to my face, in which case, why, Bones? What did I ever do to you?” Before Bones will even get the chance to so much as open his mouth in response, Jim’s will fly back open in response, snapping once again, “That’s a rhetorical question, you dick.”

Bones will smirk in amusement. “You’re being very authoritative and very five-year-old simultaneously. Not a lot of people could pull off being a good commander with an attitude more sour than my kid’s, but somehow, you do it.”

Jim will puff out his chest at that. “Damn right, I do. I can do _anything_.”

“Thank you for agreeing with me, my childish captain.”

“You’re a _dick_.”

Also? Turns out that there are some things Jim can’t do.

The mission is a simple enough one. Rarely do they get horribly complex, and rarely is he actually needed to come down. Certainly not for something like this. True, there’s an elevated risk of danger this time around, but it isn’t by much. Enough to worry over a little, enough to make extra-sure that the currently empty sickbay is ready for anything and enough to send a small medical team to stand by the transporter pad and have a medical professional go down with the landing party, but not enough for McCoy’s presence to really be warranted.

McCoy asked Kirk before he left why he felt the need to go on every single damn away mission, to which Kirk had responded, “It’s what I do, Bones.”

“ _Every_ time?”

“Most times,” Kirk amended. “Stop mother-henning me, man. It’s creepy. Stop.”

To which McCoy had smacked his captain on the back of the head and then walked away, back to his own domain, while Kirk had glared at the back of a head and then marched off to the transporter room, feigning a maintenance of dignity.

McCoy is dancing his fingers along a touch screen, bored and scrolling across various bits of information, when suddenly an alarm rings out. And—that’s not right. The sickbay crackles to life all of a sudden, he hears his name but there are alarms blaring and he can figure out the message on his own. He needs to get the fuck down to the transporter room _now_.

Maybe that was the message and maybe it wasn’t, but right now, it doesn’t matter anymore. McCoy is already up and running, pushing through any crew stupid enough to get in his way. His med team there is competent. Beyond competent. They’re his, they should be able to handle anything on their own. The fact that he’s needed – unless this is some practical joke on him courtesy of the ship’s commander, but that’s Spock right now and that’s not how it works—

His running is interrupted by the running of his own section of the crew, dashing up to meet him, to pass him if he just stands there, really, on the way to sickbay. There’s a solitary figure with them, all of them, and, jesus.

“What the fuck?” McCoy snaps, doing an immediate reversal of his direction and trying to find his tricorder without taking his eyes from the stretcher. “What the fuck happened?” Where the fuck is his tricorder?

“We aren’t sure,” someone answers, McCoy doesn’t have time for names right now because it looks like half of his best friend has been blown to hell. “There might have been an explosion, everyone else is dead, the captain—“

“Is alive,” McCoy bites through the statement, not acknowledging anything else. And, jesus fucking christ, his tricorder isn’t on him. He fucking left it back in sickbay. He practically sleeps with the damn thing. And now it isn’t on him.

Beside him someone else breathes out, “Yeah,” but McCoy lets the breath fly right by him because they’ve been going fast and for practical reasons it’s not like the transporter room is all that far from sickbay. And McCoy only needs his tricorder now to confirm his diagnosis, because he sees the uneven breathing, he hears the pathetic gasps for breath, he can see bits of extremities starting to turn colour.

And oh, yeah. Half of Kirk has been blown to all hell. On the left, he looks perfectly normal. Fine. Like he’s asleep, blood smears aside. The right is a much different story. He can see bits of the muscle tissue and bone in Jim’s right arm. He can see bits of shrapnel jutting out of his right leg; well, some are bits, but there are at least three fairly fucking large pieces still embedded in it, and god knows how badly they’re going to infect him, but it’s not like they can be removed right now. Skin discoloration from lack of properly breathing might be more evident if there was less blood spattered across Jim, less of his own staining his skin.

Unpleasant injuries, to be sure, and the blood loss is certainly disconcerting, but. Not compared to internal injuries.

Clothing on the right side has been ripped to shreds and it looks like it’s fucking framing the gaping, sucking chest wound Kirk is now sporting. Which easily explains why his chest is not rising evenly, because it’s entirely likely that he’s got a collapsed lung, and that’s just great.

The stretcher is pushed up next to a bed and Kirk is immediately moved to it while McCoy hovers over him, makes sure any tools are ready because internal injuries are a little more difficult to magically repair with the powers of science and technology, and doesn’t even attempt to find his tricorder right now because this is immediate, he has no idea where his is right now, and someone else will be able to confirm the diagnosis he’s already made.

Someone does and, shit, it’s bad. Collapsed lung with increasing pressure forcing it up against the heart, internal bleeding throughout his entire left side from random bits of shrapnel, horrific enough external injuries to worry about. But McCoy gathers himself, because he doesn’t panic in this sort of situation. He gets a little frantic, but he does not panic. That would be one of the worst things he could do.

His mind, however, doesn’t quite follow, and he tries thinking for the first thing to do. Someone else is already trying to sterilize the chest, and, okay, that’s good, because yeah, they’re probably going to need to go in there. McCoy breathes, centers himself, because things aren’t bad yet. Kirk’s heartbeat is registering a little too quickly for his tastes, but not by a whole lot. This is fixable.

Just as he’s about to make an incision, though – because he needs to get in there – Kirk gasps, the difference in his chest’s rising becomes too evident, and his eyes start fluttering. McCoy can note that one isn’t doing its job, that he’s likely blind in one eye right now, possibly for life, not to mention the fact that he’s bleeding into it, before his eyes lock with Kirk’s.

It’s a split second before Kirk loses the connection with his frantic attempts at breathing and a general inability to focus, but McCoy still caught it. He caught the life in there, the wild desperation and desire his friend has to try to survive, and he needs to make sure it happens. Because. Damn it. It’s Jim.

He’s going to be working inside of Jim.

His hand slips in his first attempt at an incision.

McCoy growls in frustration, trying to steady himself and, jesus, not make anything worse than it already is. Things are good enough and one of his staff has to push into him a little in order to get the chest tube in, to tape it down, to try to relieve pressure, and McCoy finds himself needing to tell himself to not bite anyone’s head off. He needs to not get territorial.

He needs to get his fucking head back into fucking focus. Otherwise, who’s to say he’s worthy of the good doctor title Jim has bestowed upon him?

Weak attempts at fixing the internal bleeding are being performed, but it’s not working. Everyone’s too crowded around and it just isn’t working. McCoy barks out an order to sparse out, some people just back the fuck off, see if maybe by chance there were any other survivors. Some people just, oh, hell, work on the fucking shrapnel down there. Just stop fucking crowding because it isn’t helping.

He’s obeyed without question because outside he stills knows what he’s doing. He sounds the part and they’re used to it. And Jim’s eyelids have stopped fluttering.

The heart monitor has sped up. Things aren’t working. His heart is working itself into overdrive because there’s too much pressure on it and, fuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. His thoughts are in time with the beeps, ever-increasing, ever-speeding, becoming ever-shrill as seconds tick by and Jim is going to go into cardiac arrest.

Oh, and somehow the fucking chest tube has been dislodged. McCoy yells at someone to fix it, fucking fix it, and he notices the strain in his voice, absolutely, and he’s pretty sure everyone else has heard it now, too. But it doesn’t matter as long as they do what he tells them, and they do. Because they know what they’re doing. And he, evidently, doesn’t.

Now is not the time. Now is not the time. Jim’s heart is going to stop and the first thing that comes to McCoy’s mind is the first thing he does. Sterilize, incision, get through the muscle, open the skin up further and—

Fucking fuck fuck fuck, he can’t trust his hands, why the fuck is he the one doing this, now the right lung is collapsed and the left one lacerated and that just adds to everything on top of the erratic heartbeat—

Spread the ribs apart, take care of the precautions, he’s working alone at this particular site because too much else is wrong and it’s too crowded and he’s sweating and he’s terrified, this isn’t just a patient, this is Jim. It doesn’t make a difference that this is the captain, that this is who people look to for their leadership – it’s Jim.

McCoy has both of his hands in there, positioned, and he’s compressing. Massage the heart, anything to make it work, just – just anything. The sound of a flat line, the feel of nothing working anymore – they just barely register in the back of McCoy’s mind as he keeps trying, keeps going, eyes intently focused on his best friend’s heart, his blood-covered gloves, just willing things to go back to normal, the interior to right itself, the fucking heart to start fucking beating again and restore circulation because surely everything else must be on its way now.

He ignores the dull sound of death and keeps working, working, working. He senses a hand coming near him and growls, the noise emanating deep from within his throat, low, dangerous, and animalistic. His mouth is open, trying to breathe, he can feel his hands slipping, his hair dangerously close to completely dislodging itself and obscuring his vision. He gasps with every movement he makes, whimpers of desperation.

A gentle touch to his back, a soft “Dr. McCoy,” and that’s enough to set him off. As soon as his name passes through the air to reach his ears and is done, all McCoy can hear is the flat line, suddenly piercing and consuming his entire world.

“DAMNIT,” he shouts, yells, roars, and ends up whirling around into a tray of nearby medical equipment, and, acting on total impulse, grabbing it and giving it just enough of a forceful twist to send its objects flying and tipping the stand over, letting it crash down to the ground as equipment does so around it. He doesn’t hear it though, doesn’t acknowledge it, doesn’t really see or hear anyone else, just cries out.

“GOD. FUCKING. DAMN IT, DAMN IT, DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT,” and the shouting is empty, it’s meaningless, there’s no intention of communication in the particular words he’s yelling, he’s just yelling. He’s pissed as all ever loving fuck and his natural reaction is to express it. He can’t stop to breathe, he can just move, he can only lash out, he can still hear the one note signal.

He’s given his space quickly and the sickbay is left to him, not that he notices, too busy in just—he doesn’t know. He has no fucking clue. But medical equipment goes flying and shelves get smashed, beds dislodged. Everything ends up on the ground, wires ripped and torn, glass shattered and glinting off of the floor, and McCoy just can’t express his frustration, his _grief_.

-

Some time has passed before sound is heard near the medical bay again. The footsteps approaching are even, measured, precise. Spock is functioning. It’s only logical that he does so now, now that he’s captain.

Upon first hearing the news he had blanked. Really, they all had, but Spock had to put it behind himself – at least for now – quickly, because he was now in control of the ship still stuck in orbit around the planet that had effectively killed their previous commander. They had left and were on a course headed for the next star base. Uhura was sending out the appropriate transmissions.

He wanted to see Jim, but given the informal reports of the doctor’s reaction to his friend’s death, he felt he should wait. Not much more harm could be done now, and it was only fair to the doctor. While Jim was probably as close a friend to him as he was to McCoy, the doctor had still known him longer. He had been there when he died. It was only fair to give him a little bit of extra time.

So Spock walks down the halls now, steps even, measured, precise. He approaches the sickbay and sees only dim lights from within, the rest dark. He cannot make out any objects or people initially, but when the doors open at his approach and he steps in, his eyes quickly adjust. He also hears the sound of glass crunching under his foot.

Upon better look, there is glass everywhere. There is everything everywhere. Various liquids, mechanical parts, structures. The floor is covered in an abnormal snowfall. Spock looks around at it, thankful for the shoes he is wearing, and trying to find either Jim or McCoy.

Up against the wall, near the one untouched bed, Spock can see a figure sitting, another figure in its lap. McCoy has his back to the wall, pressed up against it, and is cradling a limp body of roughly the same size. The sight of it renders Spock unable to speak for a moment, his words catching in his throat and coming out as an awkward cough. He rectifies this immediately, however, asking, “Doctor?”

McCoy looks up, away from Jim, to see Spock. He smiles softly. “Hi,” he says, voice low and soft.

Spock gently steps forwards, but does not fully approach, hesitant and uncertain of how to respond to McCoy’s smile. If there was anything he was expecting, it was not this. He reaches for something to say, the most logical thing to ask in this situation. “Are you okay?” he inquires.

McCoy’s body shakes lightly, suppressing laughter as his lips pinch together, but the quirk remains there all the same. “No, Spock, I’m not.” He drops his head back down to look at Jim, Jim’s face, and Spock follows the gaze. Jim’s right side is facing him, and he can see the – he can see injuries. Jim was the only crewmember to make it back to the ship alive, after a trap explosion of some sort, rigged by unfamiliar natives. He still does not know how long it was after the blast until Jim was brought back aboard. All he knows from trepid incoming reports is that the captain had been standing just fine upon rematerializing, and then he’d crumpled to the ground, and then the med team was right on it.

“I need to sew him up,” McCoy’s voice breaks through, and this time a small chuckle does escape his throat. Spock looks down and, sure enough, the beginnings of stitches are evident along the arm, wound still open wide near the shoulder but closer together near the wrist. “Like a garment. I need to sew him up, heal the scarring as best as I can, and have him looking nice and pretty for an official burial.”

Spock comes closer, lowering himself further down to the ground to get a look. Jim’s head is lolling a bit off to the side, but at least his eyes are closed. His face is still smeared in blood, and there are darker, dried clumps in certain spots. Spock has to think to himself that at least his friend can’t feel it now. At the same time, he does not like looking.

Spock averts his gaze to the side and asks, “Does it have to be done now?”

“Yeah,” McCoy answers, lightness gone from his voice and gruffness back in full force. “It does.”

Spock looks back and sees McCoy’s gaze focused intently on Jim’s face, but his eyes are deadened and Spock wonders how much he can really even see. It’s dark and clearly the doctor isn’t in his right mind. “You should not be working at this moment,” Spock informs him, voice still soft.

“Like fuck I shouldn’t,” McCoy snaps. There’s a little more life to his voice but nothing about his physicality has changed at all. “I wasn’t doing anything before. I fucked it up. I completely and utterly fucked it up. At least this I can’t.”

“The injuries are severe,” Spock tries. “I urge you to step away for a moment and get some rest, Doctor. Please.”

McCoy’s voice is particularly rough around the edges as he mutters, “Don’t call me that.”

“Don’t call you—“

“Doctor. Don’t call me doctor. Not anymore. Promote someone else and replace me, Spock. I quit.”

Spock blinks. He looks around him and knows that the medical bay cannot stay in such a state, that it is a fortunate thing that no other crewmembers required care at the time. He knows that this action was unacceptable and dangerous, but – Spock reasons to himself – under the circumstances… understandable. And McCoy may have lost a patient, but that does not stop him from being a capable medical professional.

He vocalizes this thought, and McCoy lets out a soft snort. “It actually was my fault, though. I’m responsible. I might as well have killed him myself. I screwed up beyond all belief and this is what happened.” He looks up to look Spock directly in the eyes. It’s the first time he’s made eye contact since, and though it’s only been three hours, it still jars him to actually do that. “I did kill him. And that’s it. I can’t do this anymore.” He looks back down, lingering on the mostly clean half of the face. It needs to be washed. The whole thing needs to be washed.

Spock hesitates. Normally McCoy is overly-emotional and prone to exaggerations, and in a case such as this one it’s all Spock would expect from him, but there’s something depressingly zen about the moment and McCoy’s attitude. He’s more inclined to believe him right now, but he’d rather not.

“Leonard,” Spock says, and McCoy starts, Jim’s body rolling slightly in his arms. He doesn’t move his head, but his eyes do shift to look directly at Spock again in the low light. It’s not like Spock’s eyes are welling up the same way his are, but there’s a somewhat common emotional plane between the two. It’s a small something.

“I insist that you give yourself additional time to reconsider your decision,” Spock finishes. He extends a hand to gently grace Jim’s face, then stands back up and exits, footsteps punctuated by the sound of glass crunching beneath his feet. The doors open and shut with little noise, and the light entering the sickbay from outside is extinguished immediately.

Bones looks back down at his friend’s face. One hand supports the neck, the other edges itself towards the needle, and Jim’s legs extend out of his lap to the floor beside him. He then takes a breath and slowly leans his head backwards, gently resting the back against the wall, and exhales.


End file.
